Autumn Lotus Yoga

Just finished Dr Jill Taylor’s “My Stroke of Insight” and if I could get everyone in the world to take it as assigned reading (hey, it’s less than 200 pages!), I would.

Frickin’ brilliant book.

Nutshell is that at the age of 37, neuroanatomist Taylor had a stroke that essentially wiped out the left side of her brain for a while.  The left hemisphere is responsible for language (including our internal mental dialogue), math, complex symbolic & analytical reasoning… all sorts of useful things that make us able to do complicated tasks & also drive ourselves batsh*t. 

Living in the right hemisphere connected Taylor viscerally, immediately & literally with a sense of union/oneness with the universe, complete joy & connection to the present moment… in essence, Nirvana (her word, not just mine).

Sound familiar?  Sound a little like the process of yoga/meditation?  And accessible to all, without having to burst a blood vessel. 

Taylor embarked immediately post-stroke on a journey to reclaim/reintegrate her left hemisphere.  She had to relearn who she was & how to live in the world and is now back at work as a scientist, but with a whole new attitude.

The book has incredible insights, not “just” into the work of balancing the left/right hemispheres to function with both complex reasoning & inner peace, but also on the process of healing & how to help ourselves & others mend body & mind.

I promised myself I’d quote only one passage from the book & it’s been a doozy of a task to figure out which one.  Think I’ll go with this, from p. 168 of my paperback edition or look for the second full paragraph of chapter 19.

“Based upon my experience with losing my left mind, I wholeheartedly believe that the feeling of deep inner peace is neurological circuitry located in our right brain.  This circuitry is constantly running and always available for us to hook into.  The feeling of peace is something that happens in the present moment.  It’s not something that we bring with us from the past or project into the future.”

Suddenly, I feel like going to the mat for a little while.

A few days ago I leafed through my October edition of Yoga Journal, conveniently delivered to my doorstep whilst the September issue still graces the newsstands.  Was busy & gave it a cursory run through, noted the Ana discussion regarding Forrest abs in the comments/letters section on p 22 & then tossed it into recycling.

Bad move.

Got an email this morning from my fab friend Terra over at www.schmetterlingyoga.blogspot.com who pointed out that, Holy Cow (her words)/Holy F*ck! (mine : I have a letter to the editor published on p 22 of October’s Yoga Journal.  And I totally missed it.  So much for my mindfulness!

Coulda knocked me over with a feather.  God, cliches are sooo useful sometimes.

See, a few months ago I wrote to YJ  in response to an article I blogged about in detail here:

    http://autumnlotusyoga.omblogger.com/2009/07/08/science-of-flexibility/ 

But since I didn’t hear back, I thought nothing of it.

Terra was sweet enough to email me the exact content of what they published, cuz remember, I tossed my copy & will now have to track down another.  It’s a small paragraph, excerpted here, mostly so my mom can read it , but it makes me happy.  It’s fun to be able to geek out for a few sentences in a favorite magazine.

Yoga Journal
October 2009
Letters, pg. 22
 
“I loved the article about the science of flexibility, “A Mindful Stretch.”  There are many basic physiological tools we can use to enhance our asana practice, and it was a terrific look at two of them (adaptation and anticipatory release).  However, I was wondering why Cole didn’t cover two of my other favorite ways to work with the stretch reflex: reciprocal inhibition and proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation.  Both techniques can be used to great effect in a yoga practice.
 
Elizabeth Pope 
Cambridge, Massachusetts”

Woah, dude.

In other news, went to Peter Crowley’s awesome Forrest class at Back Bay (yay for splits done 19 different ways!)  & then wandered St Antony’s Feast Festival in Boston’s North End with a rockin’ yoga friend & Beloved Husband.  Good day. 

Strange day.

Towards the end of Forrest teacher training, we were instructed to make a list of all the things yoga has given us.  And encouraged to keep the list alive, updated & carry it along to reread on those days when we just couldn’t “get it up” to practice or teach.  One of these days when I don’t feel like forming full sentences I may just post it directly, maybe in the hopes of inspiring others to make their own list.

I don’t practice to attain enlightenment.  (Really, the world should be terrified of a redhead achieving enlightenment; we’re enough trouble as it is.   Or because the clothes are comfortable.  Though that totally helps.  I practice to live a happy, relatively sane, functional life. 

Without yoga I would have self-destructed myself right into the morgue.  But forget the big drama stuff.  I’ve just been feeling incredibly grateful for my life, my snug little family, & the quotidian off-the-mat victories that mean so much.

Yesterday was a lovely example.   After practice, met a friend for lunch & talked the afternoon away.  Without fortifying myself with drinks, or binging or purging or depriving or running away… ate yummy sushi, had ice cream, shared & listened.  Met up with Beloved Husband later for a brilliantly, perfectly, delightfully, sublimely boring evening of random errands, stopping by a bookstore (got My Stroke of Insight!!  Reading it soon; book report to follow!! , & dined on a fancy meal of burritos.  Came home & had my first experience using  a plunger & fixing a simple problem without fuss or fear.  Watched West Wing on DVD on the couch til bedtime.

A happy, functional day.  A day impossible without hours of practice. 

That’s why I was back on the mat this morning.  Really, exactly what poses I did on that mat is, in the bigger picture, incredibly important & also completely irrelevant.   Suffice to say, it was good.

I’ve been workin’ a home practice alot this week — combination of feelin’ poorly Sun/Mon & then getting really interested in some specific aspects of my attitude & technique that I wanted to focus on.  Today I went back to a favorite 2 hr Forrest Intensive CD, Day 4 of the 5 day set to continue to practice working gently with myself as well as lifting up out of the lower back & keeping sacrum stable, especially during twists.  Ahhhhhhhhhhh……

The morning blog reading added another book to my “must read” list.  It crossed my radar awhile back, but got back-burnered (for someone with a lot of respect for language, I do abuse it terribly somedays .  It’s called “My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey” by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. 

Basic synopsis is that a young neuroscientist had a stroke & is able to recount her experience through both the eyes of a patient & a scientist.  One nugget from the book was highlighted in an eating disorder recovery blog I read by psychotherapist Karen Koenig, excerpted & linked here: 

http://www.eatingdisordersblogs.com/healthy/2009/08/the-90-second-emotion-rule.html

“Taylor says it takes “less than 90 seconds” for an emotion to get triggered, surge chemically through the blood stream, then get flushed out. She goes on to assert that within this brief period of time, the automatic emotional response is complete, so that whatever we feel after that is our choosing. Stunning information! Her take is that we need to be present and open to the feeling at whatever intensity it comes. If we short-circuit it, we won’t receive the full impact of the message it’s delivering. Alternately, if we continue to stoke the fires of the emotion, we’re holding on to discomfort unnecessarily. ”

Koenig then recommends: “Next time you’re stressed or distressed, grab your watch or keep your eyes on the clock. Watch the second hand go ‘round one and one-half times. Notice how you feel. Get in the habit of observing how long the physical part of experiencing an emotion takes. Pay attention to what you’re feeling and see if you can simply allow the emotion to wash over and through you. Do nothing, just let it flow.

Koenig continues: “If you allow yourself the full 90 seconds of experiencing a feeling while staying mindfully in neutral, congratulate yourself. If you distracted yourself before the chemicals were able to naturally flush through your system, be compassionate and remind yourself to try to do better next time. If you’re still hanging onto your feelings after 90 seconds, gently pry yourself away with the reminder that you no longer need to hold on. You felt what you felt and hopefully gained insight or information from the experience and now it’s time to let go. Ninety seconds, that’s all it takes.”

One of the many things I find interesting about this is that it looks to be another instance of science supporting what yogis & meditators have observed for centuries.  And I love that.

What’s true & worthwhile in any of these methods will stand up to scrutiny & what doesn’t can be continued or not by its practitioners as they choose. 

So my standing assertion regarding double-blind, full scientific method examination of yoga, Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, meditation, acupuncture, you-name-it alternative therapy remains simply this: BRING IT.

Practiced at home today, to the mellifluous humorous dulcet tones of Dr. Heidi Sormaz, Fresh Yoga owner & Forrest yoga goddess.   Did her Sacrum stabilization hour class then right into a gentle Forrest 90 minute session.

Forrest yoga talks about how we get metaphysical crap lodged into tight or injured areas & need to address the emotional attitude/issue in order to open the tight spot or heal the injury.  Well, I think I’m getting to know the attitude that’s been stuck in my lower back.

It’s the manifestation of self-abuse over never being good enough, never measuring up, including in my own practice.  Of ignoring pain signals & yelling at myself for not being capable rather than going deeper into refining technique & moving my breath to feel better the living heart of a pose rather than forcing a pretty external shape. 

My lower back has to learn to trust me again — that I won’t hurt it or myself, no matter what.  Not through deeds (compromising well-being to achieve some external goal) or self-talk.

I see my students doing this also on their mats & its hard to watch.  (Thank goodness I get to assist, take action to try & help, to show gentleness & that they are worth handling kindly. :) 

As humans we have this unhappy talent for taking gifts — food, sex, our bodies, our minds — & turning them into weapons against ourselves.  We beat our ploughshares into swords & then commit ritual seppuku day after day after day.

What if we all just got tired of it, laid down our swords & stopped?  What if we tried it just for today?

Thank you so much to all who have submitted book suggestions!!  Awesome, awesome, awesome… I’m thinkin’ now that we’ve moved the Cambridge Move page will come down & I’ll devote that page to books!  Yoga bibliophiles unite!

Today I was having a glum draggy day for no good reason which persisted through teacher’s practice.  It was alleviated only once I got my head out of my own BS and focused on getting my hands on & assisting others.  Which brought me back to a conversation I had with a friend a few days ago that I’ve been mulling on ever since.

She brought up the question of when an emotional issue comes up (the yoga mat is like a giant catalyst for this),  when do we know it’s time to stop avoiding it & dive in & deal.  And how do we deal?

That’s a doozy of an issue on its own.  Flip side that also keeps buggin’ me is when do we know it’s time to stop wallowing in an issue, picking at the scab as it were, and get out of own way & on with our life.

The vague, almost euphemistic term “issues” refers to maybe pus pockets from our past, like abuse, or current bogeymen of debt, addiction, eating disorders, being in a damaging relationship with ourself or someone else… name your poison.  Avoiding or drowning suck equally & fracture our insides just when we’re looking to become whole.

There’s this mirroring effect & maybe some of the same indicators apply to both sides.  If we’re shutting down, turning to food or alcohol or drugs or sex or self-destruction to distract ourselves or numb out, or if we’re isolating ourselves, these are all signs that what we’re doing isn’t working — whether its how we’re avoiding or conversely, obsessing.

If we’re feeling it, moving through it, talking to safe, trusted people and become more open to ourselves & those we love, those are signs of a constructive approach.   Getting professional help when feeling overwhelmed or when feeling stuck in a festering fishbowl is a warrior’s choice — Just Do It.

And ceremony can be a great way to let go of what’s darkening the spirit — even as simple a ceremony as writing down what you want to be rid of & burning the piece of paper along with some sage.  Sometimes one needs to do this more than once; more than even once a day maybe.

Cuz at some stage, we all end up needing to take the skeletons in our closet out dancing for a night on the town… but we don’t gotta spend the rest of our lives dragging them around like Marley’s chains.   I imagine a kind of perpetual daycare where we can drop off our skeletons & they can be left to keep each other company, play cards & swap tales, while we get to go on with our lives a little freer, a little lighter. 

Got the (for me) irresistible challenge to list my current favorite yoga-related books.  Couldn’t keep it to ten… think I ended up with 14 so far.  Provided the Amazon.com link (or tried to, anyway) in case someone wanted a longer review which I’m just too lazy to provide this morning.

Note, these are not necessarily strictly yoga books & frankly I prefer it that way.  And they are all modern, Western books because darn it, this is a living system and where I stand seems hopelessly rooted in where I sit, culturally speakin.’. :)  Oh, & today’s yoga plan is to do a full practice cuz I’m feeling healthy again & also, super treat, go for a massage!!!  1st since moving from DC which is waaaaaaaayyyyyy tooooooo looooooong!!!!

By Category Assigned Solely In My Head

Adjustments

- Stephanie Pappas, Yoga Posture Adjustements & Assisting: Assists really need to be learned in workshops, teacher training & by doing, but this is a good reference & memory jogger.  Not quite Forrest-style, but useful! http://www.amazon.com/Yoga-Posture-Adjustments-Assisting-Insightful/dp/1412051622/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251195593&sr=1-1

Anatomy

- Leslie Kaminoff, Yoga Anatomy: Best yoga-specific anatomy book that is also immensely readable http://www.amazon.com/Yoga-Anatomy-Leslie-Kaminoff/dp/0736062785/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251195725&sr=1-1

- Kurt Albertine, Anatomica’s Body Atlas: Fabulous reference http://www.amazon.com/Anatomicas-Body-Atlas-Ph-D-Albertine/dp/1592237436/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251195793&sr=1-1

- Blandine Calais-Germain, Anatomy of Movement: Applied anatomy with lots of pictures http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Movement-Revised-Blandine-Calais-Germain/dp/0939616572/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251195839&sr=1-1

Autobiography

- Tim Guest, My Life In Orange: Young boy who grew up as part of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s commune in Britain, India, Germany & the US.  Insights dark & light http://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Orange-Growing-Guru/dp/015603106X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251195889&sr=1-1

- Lucy Edge, Yoga School Drop Out: Irrevent Brit on a rampage; very funny http://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Orange-Growing-Guru/dp/015603106X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251195889&sr=1-1

- Sarah McDonald, Holy Cow:  Travails of a Westerner living in India.  Both terrified & excited me before I went to visit! http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Cow-Adventure-Sarah-Macdonald/dp/0767915747/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251196074&sr=1-1

Buddhism

- Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: Kept it in my purse at times.  Nuf said. http://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Fall-Apart-Difficult/dp/1570629692/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251196145&sr=1-1

- Jack Kornfield, Wise Heart: Good applied breakdown of Buddhist principles for everyday http://www.amazon.com/Wise-Heart-Universal-Teachings-Psychology/dp/0553382330/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251196179&sr=1-1

Philosophy/Psychology

- Stephen Cope, Yoga & the Quest for True Self: I consider this a classic.  All Stephen Cope’s stuff is good though. http://www.amazon.com/Yoga-Quest-True-Self-Stephen/dp/055337835X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251196235&sr=1-1

- John Welwood, Towards a Psychology of Awakening: Psychology, philosophy, spirituality, life experiences… wealth of interesting topics http://www.amazon.com/Toward-Psychology-Awakening-Psychotherapy-Transformation/dp/1570628238/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251196292&sr=1-1

Science

- Sandra & Matthew Blakeslee, The Body Has a Mind of it’s Own: Dedicated a whole post to this already.  I loved it, better than Cats http://www.amazon.com/Body-Has-Mind-Its-Own/dp/0812975278/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251154856&sr=8-1

- Candace Pert, Molecules of Emotion:  I’m about to reread this & expect to talk about more fully soon as I’m a little ways in. http://www.amazon.com/Molecules-Emotion-Science-Mind-Body-Medicine/dp/0684846349/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251195396&sr=1-1

Teaching

- Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach: General book on teaching.  Frank, inspiring, well written http://www.amazon.com/Courage-Teach-Exploring-Landscape-Teachers/dp/0787910589/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251195442&sr=1-2

Okay, other yoga geeks, what are your current faves for yoga/related reading???  I need some more books!! (Well, I WANT some more books, that might be the truer statement….;)